Education tops Mayor Garcia’s city to-do list: Editorial

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia held an education summit at Cal State Long Beach with new university president Jane Close Conoley in attendance Friday, July 18, 2014, Long Beach, CA. Mayor Garcia outlines his goals for education during a speech.
Photo by Steve McCrank/Daily Breeze

With less than a week in office, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia is setting the bar high

Calling for affordable housing for teachers in downtown, reshaping the city’s sleepy technology department into an innovation hub and doubling the number of students with internships, the mayor set out an ambitious agenda centering around education for his first term.

And that’s likely to be only part of his broader agenda that he has said will include fiscal discipline, sustainability, economic development and open government.

On Friday, the Cal State Long Beach graduate unveiled five ambitious goals at his alma matter that also included partnering with Long Beach Promise, a program that builds a strong bridge between Long Beach Unified School District and the city’s higher education institutions, and offering pre-kindergarten to all residents.

Seated next to the city’s top education officials, he laid out the education arm of his agenda for his first term in office.

In doing so, he distinguished himself for having a far-reaching vision for the city. As a mayor who is also an educator, he is crafting policies in familiar territory.

If his efforts begin to take shape, Garcia could bring much-needed energy to two beleaguered institutions in Long Beach — government and public education. Both have ridden through some difficult years, battered down by steep budget cuts and sagging morale.

As on the campaign trail, Garcia’s enthusiasm for the city seemed boundless on Friday.

He fondly remembered the first day he became a citizen as the best day of his life and thanked his partner, another scholar who is focused on the representation of the undocumented, as well as the former university president Bob Maxson as the most influential person in his life next to his mother. He heaped praise on Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College and the Long Beach Unified School District.

But the decision to focus first on education was as much a nod to his personal history — Garcia has a doctorate in education and was a former Long Beach City College administrator — as to his unique place.

The youngest mayor to be elected in Long Beach at 36 years old, Garcia’s first policy announcements are those oriented toward the young — the college students and high schoolers who will build the city’s future.

As noted in previous editorials, the city’s population is shifting and becoming increasingly Latino. Those Latinos are often younger and poorer than average. So, it’s smart that Garcia is helping to create resources that would put those youths on the right path.

Advertisement

He noted that the relationship between education institutions like the district and government officials isn’t always friendly, especially when one is telling the other what to do.

Instead, he said the city plans to be collaborators with these institutions.

The concept is a good one but too often fails in part because the two entities aren’t on the same team. With this mayor, they could be. His chief of staff is the former spokesperson for Long Beach City College and he sat himself at a table full of educators.

Only time will tell how successful Garcia’s plans are and how much of this is carried through.

But somehow, its hard to think that a man so deeply rooted in the city’s education system could be anything but genuine.